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I know little of space physics, but wouldn't the additional gravity of an asteroid disrupt tidal patterns on earth?
by rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
I know little of space physics, but wouldn't the additional gravity of an asteroid disrupt tidal patterns on earth?
- Pinckney 11y agoNo. Any asteroid we could reasonably capture is much too small to have any significant impact.
- nerfhammer 11y agoWhat if we mess it up and it comes tumbling toward earth?
- personjerry 11y agoThis is the sort of thing we would verify the calculations of, many times, and consider problems ahead of time.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- 8note 11y agoit would likely burn up on entry
- InclinedPlane 11y agoWe lack the ability to move a large enough asteroid to do any serious damage.
- Pinckney 11y agoNot yet, but perhaps in the near future. The National Space Society has a proposal up for capturing 99942 Apophis via gravitational slingshot, which would be fairly damaging if we managed to crash it.
- slyall 11y agoLets put it this way. The largest asteroid in the inner Solar system, Ceres has a mass of 1.3% of the moon. The size of asteroid we are talking about here is likely to be closer to a container ship or maybe a small hill. Perhaps 1 millionth of the size/mass of Ceres at the most.